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Monday, May 11, 2015

On Trans-Pacific Partnership, Huckabee is to left of Obama

TRANS-PACIFIC PARTNERSHIP: Heads of state at a 2010 summit discussing the trade deal.

Let's start the work week with mention of an issue that pits Barack Obama and Ted Cruz against Elizabeth Warren and Mike Huckabee. That would be the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

The TPP is the huge free trade deal between the U.S. and 11 other Pacific Rim countries that faces a crucial vote in the U.S. Senate this week. The vote in question is not on the TPP itself, but on granting "trade promotion authority" (also called "fast track authority") to President Obama to negotiate the finer points of the agreement for purposes of handing Congress an up-or-down vote on the final deal.

Trade deals are complicated, with lots of winners and lots of losers. I won't get deep into the arguments for and against the TPP here — and there are many — but I will say I'm immediately skeptical of any global trade deal negotiated by the U.S. Trade Representative simply because of its track record. The majority of free trade agreements in recent decades (such as NAFTA and CAFTA-DR) have eroded the bargaining position of workers at home and abroad and diminished the ability of governments to protect public health, labor, the environment and the rule of law itself.

But although most of the presumptive Republican presidential candidates — Cruz included — are on board with expanding Obama's dictatorial reach whenever it serves the interests of the Chamber of Commerce to do so, Mike Huckabee recently told NBC that he is not. According to Politico:

“When there’s cronies involved and getting a special deal and when other countries are cheating and Americans lose jobs,” Huckabee said, “I’d like to think the U.S. government would stand up for the U.S. workers rather than let them take it in the backside and somehow just have to tough it out.”

The former governor said that he does not support giving the president authority to negotiate the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade agreement without new congressional amendments or the threat of a filibuster.

Here's more worthy reading from Slate on the strange bedfellows created by the trade issue, and on how some lefty activists are using the same rhetoric as the Tea Party in opposing the TPP:

After years of ridiculing the Tea Party movement’s talk of Obama as an autocrat on issues such as immigration and health care, the left is now pushing those very buttons on trade, noting that fast track would give Obama vast powers and that the TPP would create a new international arbitration panel where corporations could challenge local, state, and national laws. ... Essentially, the left is saying to conservative Republicans: If you’re worried about executive overreach and global governance, then you really had better get upset about fast track and TPP.

Among Arkansas's congressional delegation, Sen. John Boozman has said he supports granting the president trade promotion authority. To my knowledge, Sen. Tom Cotton hasn't said clearly one way or the other whether he plans to vote for giving Obama fast-track authority.

Why Medicaid enrollment has dropped by almost 60,000 people in 18 months.

Though the $22 million reduction is tiny relative to the overall $7.1 billion spent on Medicaid in Arkansas, it amounts to a significant savings. That's because the cost of Medicaid, and most other health care costs, typically grows year over year at a rate greater than regular inflation.

DHS also announced that it had finalized plans to transition certain Preferred Family services to three other behavioral health providers in the wake of the state agency's cancellation of its contracts with PFH.

Sen. Jason Rapert really, really didn't like it when a KATV reporter asked him about the hypocrisy of his political arguments.

The Wall Street Journal reports here on how Russian troll farms have exploited cracks in social media for propaganda purposes, appropriating images for re-use in their disinformation campaigns. Arkansas angle:

Gov. Asa Hutchinson and 2nd District U.S. Rep. French Hill have refused to participate in TV debates scheduled in September.

Chintan Desai, the Democratic candidate for 1st District Congress, just dropped by with some news: An endorsement, a debate date and a celebrity visitor for his Republican incumbent opponent, Rep. Rick Crawford.

A lawsuit was filed today in the federal court for the District of Columbia challenging Arkansas's work requirement for many Medicaid recipients.

Rep. John Lewis, the civil rights legend, will visit Little Rock Sunday afternoon for a fund-raiser for state Rep. Clarke Tucker, the Democratic candidate for 2nd District Congress against Republican Rep. French Hill.